South Thames College awarded Matrix accreditation

The prestigious Matrix accreditation has been awarded to South Thames College for providing high quality information, advice and guidance to young people who want to make informed choices about their career, a service of major importance that seems to becoming more and more sparse.

This accolade comes at a time when career services are under considerable funding pressure.

Unison, the public-sector union, announced earlier this year that at least 8,000 youth advice workers have been made redundant, while Connexions centres, funded by the Department of Education to provide information, advice, guidance and support service to young people aged thirteen to nineteen, are rapidly closing across the UK.

The Government is set to launch a new all-age national careers service in 2012. Schools will have a new legal responsibility to provide independent career guidance for their students. However, the Secretary of State for Education’s announcement that school budgets will not rise, following these substantial changes has raised significant concerns about the quality of such services.

The problems that career services are currently facing are not solely of economic nature. The effectiveness of Connexions has often been questioned. The agency has also been criticised for targeting specific student groups.

Furthermore, according to the latest Ofsted report regarding careers services, while all the secondary schools visited for the survey, provided careers education, inspectors were concerned about the completeness and impartiality of the advice offered.

Ofsted noted that in four of the seven secondary schools visited that had a sixth form, more guidance was available for students about transferring into the sixth form than for the wider opportunities outside the school.

Impartiality is one of the qualities of the newly Matrix accredited South Thames College.

Janet Smith, Deputy Principal of the FE college, stressed the important role that schools must play in a community: “As an organisation at the heart of the community, South Thames College is delighted to receive this kite mark which confirms the quality of the impartial advice we give to young people across London.

“It is our mission to improve the lives of those in our local communities and this is just one way in which we are achieving it.”

Apostolos Kostoulas